We have four geldings, all nearly 12 years old. Their names are: Faro, Fyta, Fergus and Fidget. We started keeping Alpacas with these 4 boys in June 2007 and although we had up to eight boys for several years, we have now reverted to keeping our original four. Through this blog we hope to show how much pleasure can be had from owning Alpacas.

OUR SMALL HERD

Our four boys came from Ardo Alpacas in Aberdeenshire. We are not alpaca breeders and have our boys purely as pets. Our experience is that you don't need to be a breeder and that a 'batchelor herd' can give much pleasure to the owner.
We have 5 acres including our big garden and grazing for the boys, 15 miles north of Inverness, Scotland. I spin, knit, felt and crochet with the fleece from the boys.

Clicking!!

Just a reminder that clicking on (most) of the photos will show them greatly enlarged.

Sunday, 17 June 2012

Chilly weather routine

What to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon, when it's freezing cold and your nice warm fleecy coat is now in a black poly bag up in the loft (with lots of other black poly bags)?! Nothing for it but to get into the shelters, chew on some hay and snuggle up to your buddies for warmth. It's now a couple of weeks since the shearing but due to the low temperatures we are still finding the boys shivering a little now and then. Yesterday was particularly cold and as soon as the rain started the boys hit the hay! It is surprising perhaps that they feel the cold so much, being high altitude animals, but perhaps the sudden loss of all the fleece combined with unusually low temperatures makes them shiver to keep warm.

Six of the boys were in this shelter, from the left Gaucho, Fidget, Rufus, Fyta, Wee Eck and Faro.

Fidget at the back of the shelter - his favourite bed, furthest from the draughty entrance and surrounded by the others for protection!

'Big ears' - Wee Eck sorting out a little snack for himself.

In the field shelter next door were Fergus (above) and Gaucho who is just out of shot, with Fergus delighted to have a whole hay bucket to himself. One unfortunate casualty of the boys being in the shelters a lot is that they tend to mess everywhere so the 'poop patrol' is often in action. Interestingly, they do not mess in the shelter next door where most of them lie down, or use as a rolling area.

And finally..........Red Hot Pokers (Kniphofia) looking great at this time of the year and always guaranteed to bring plenty of colour to the garden. Lots of little birds feed off the flower heads, and the chickens in the compound through the fence get plenty of shelter from them.

Shirley, our two "ladies in waiting" say that they will gladly donate their fleeces to any cold alpacas living in more northerly climes!! Alternatively, as they're all on the look out for boys at the moment, they say that your handsome chaps are welcome visit them for a spot of "winter sun"!

It is good to know that we're not the only ones with bags of fleece up in the loft ...waiting to be used, with the stash growing larger every year as I fail to make much of a dent in it!